Australian Psyche

January 9th, 1868 marked the end of 80 years of continuous convict transportation to Australia. For 80 years the prisoners' free labour had built the cities and towns in the colonial outpost.At the same time, China was in a period of overpopulation, insufficient food supply, and was suffering from the effects of multiple natural disasters occurring in quick succession. Many families chose to pool their wealth together to send an able-bodied family member overseas to seek financial security, and Chinese immigration grew quickly as convict populations in Australia decreased.

The Governor brothers, Jimmy and Joe, were two First Nations Outlaws who took to the bush to escape justice from their violence and crimes. While on the run, they sought vengeance against those who had wronged them and bore grudges which had echoed down their bloodline.

The last man to be hanged in Australia died in 1967, but the first died long before the British ever arrived. In this episode we explore the executions of the innocent and the guilty throughout Australia’s early history, as well as the life of famed executioner and social pariah, Solomon Blay.

The arrival of European invaders at Sydney in 1788 marked the beginning of a prolonged and multifaceted campaign against First Nations Peoples which was, by modern standards, genocidal. In the Northern Territory in the 1920’s the Coniston Massacres unfolded with tragic outcomes for the local Aboriginal people and would echo hauntingly down the family lines of all involved.

The extent of Richard Deeming’s crimes will never truly be fully realised. With rumours of his possible crimes across many countries, and links being made to murders often attributed to Jack the Ripper, Deeming became a notorious figure in early Australia. Like many men before him, Deeming had tried to run from his past sins and make a life for himself in Australia. However, the one thing Deeming couldn’t flee was his own cruel nature.

Rum was what kept the men of the colonies moving. Its desirability helped to build towns and cities, and its proceeds even funded a hospital. Life in colonial Australia was punishing, and the “tipple” alleviated some of the challenges of being isolated at the bottom of the world in a strange and hostile new land.   

Sex work was the only way some women could survive in the colonies, but it was risky work, and some women became trapped in cycles of poverty from which there was escape. Others did not live to tell their tales.

Faced with the existential dread that wartime brings, Australians wrote. They wrote journals, letters, postcards, memoirs, memorials, and poems to capture what they were seeing and how they were feeling. In this episode we explore the voices of Australians during the First World War.

Asylums and their inhabitants were kept out of sight and out of mind. Escapes, violence, murders, and suicides were all splashed across the headlines of the papers. But most importantly, behind the high walls, people lived out their lives, squirreling away what precious few items they held dear, working in the gardens and kitchens, and waiting for the day when they might be free.

Australia's oceans are both inviting and terrifying. In colonial and early post colonial Australia, people turned to the ocean for survival and recreation. But the fearsome shark took the lives of many and struck fear into the hearts of countrymen and women.

In the sleepy coastal town of Tasmania’s Triabunna, twin tragedies would intertwine in the late 1890’s and leave an indelible mark on the lives of the townspeople for years to come. In this episode of Australian Psyche, we recount the tragedy that befell The Glover Family.

The Rocks Push roamed and ruled the streets of the Sydney Rocks in the late 1800’s. In the first episode of Australian Psyche, we explore their violence, their famed members, and their legacy.

Follow to hear the dark history of our post-colonial forebears brought to life as we explore newspaper articles, poems, letters, and diary entries to tell the stories of Australian’s who lived between invasion and the early 1900’s. Australia has been shaped by a long history of violence, murder, crime, incarceration,racism, massacres, and isolation. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”